Tibetan / Vajrayana

Vajrayana Buddhism is most closely associated with Tibet and can be characterized by the figure of the siddha, the master whose spiritual realization is so profound that he or she has power over the phenomenal world, and in whom the profundity and vastness of absolute truth is fully and completely manifested. Many of our most well-known authors come from this tradition of Tibetan Buddhism .

[Note: The tags for the various schools are not definitive as many books span multiple traditions, etc. They are meant to use as a starting point for exploring this collection.]

My Teachers’ Essential Guidance on Dzogchen

The teachings in this book are the distillation of a lifetime’s commitment to Dzogchen realization and practice. Here, Khetsun Sangpo Rinpoche teaches from “the top of the mountain down.” That is, he offers to Western readers with varying levels of… Read More

Foundations of the Buddhist Path

In 1838, Choying Tobden Dorje, a Buddhist yogi-scholar of eastern Tibet, completed a multivolume masterwork that traces the entire path of the Nyingma tradition of Tibetan Buddhism from beginning to end. Written by a lay practitioner for laypeople, it… Read More

The Uttaratantra and Its Meditative Tradition as a Bridge between Sutra and Tantra

“Buddha nature” (tathāgatagarbha) is the innate potential in all living beings to become a fully awakened buddha. This book discusses a wide range of topics connected with the notion of buddha nature as presented in Indo-Tibetan Buddhism and includes an… Read More

Volume One: A Guidebook for the Realization of Coemergence

This guidebook for cultivating the meditative practices of stability and insight—the first major work from the Drukpa Kagyu lineage to become available in English—stands out among works of its kind as one of the clearest and most comprehensive presentations… Read More

A Comprehensive Guide to the Classic of Mahayana Buddhism

The Prajna Paramita Hridaya Sutra is among the best known of all the Buddhist scriptures. Chanted daily by many Zen students, it is also studied extensively in the Tibetan tradition, and it has been regarded with interest more recently in… Read More

Autobiographical Reflections

In this autobiographical narrative, Kyabje Thinley Norbu Rinpoche sets a magical scene as he describes his early years in “Snowland” (Tibet) as one of seven children of the renowned Nyingma master Kyabje Dudjom Rinpoche. After touching on his youthful… Read More

With masterful clarity and precision, The Profound Inner Principles delineates the principles and foundations of Vajrayāna practice. Rangjung Dorje presents the nature of things—mental and physical—and looks at the cause of delusion, what delusion creates, and how delusion is corrected.… Read More

Maitreya's Mahayanasutralamkara with Commentaries by Khenpo Shenga and Ju Mipham

The Buddhist masterpiece Ornament of the Great Vehicle Sūtras, often referred to by its Sanskrit title, Mahāyānasūtrālaṃkāra, is part of a collection known as the Five Maitreya Teachings, a set of philosophical works that have become classics of the Indian… Read More

Longchen Rabjam's Writings on the Great Perfection

This classic collection of texts on the meditation practice and theory of Dzogchen presents the Great Perfection through the writings of its supreme authority, the fourteenth-century Tibetan scholar and visionary Longchen Rabjam. The pinnacle of Vajrayana practice in the… Read More

An Asian Approach to Analytical Thinking Drawn from Indian and Tibetan Sources

Buddhism is a wisdom tradition. It asserts that we are liberated by the power of our own understanding. The three purposes of Buddhist debate are to defeat your own and others’ misconceptions, to establish your own correct view, and… Read More

The Gangama Instructions with Commentary

All lineages of Mahamudra meditation have their source in a verse teaching—a “song of realization”—sung by the Mahasiddha Tilopa to his disciple Naropa on the banks of the Ganges River more than a thousand years ago. Since that time,… Read More

Dakini Sukha Vajra, widely known as Sera Khandro, wrote this commentary of an account by the great Dudjom Lingpa of visions he had of enlightened beings and the teachings he received from them regarding our perception of reality.

The Autobiography of Khenpo Ngawang Palzang

Khenpo Ngawang Palzang, also known as Khenpo Ngakchung or Khenpo Ngaga, was one of the great masters in the late nineteenth and the first half of the twentieth centuries. He was an extremely influential teacher who taught some of… Read More